I made it through my first hurricane...

Saturday, September 24, 2005
September 24, 2005

actually, though I don't think what we experienced qualifies as going through a hurricane. It turned so far east that we didn't get much at all. We have been without electricity since about two o'clock this morning and it just came back on about forty five minutes ago. Our bedroom was lit up several times with green flashes of light when tranformers blew out here. When it came back on the first thing I did vaccum my floor in case it went off again (we were teased several times before it actually stayed on)!!! After the rain quit we just opened the door and windows to get a breeze since there was no AC and that plus having the outside plants in the foyer brought in a lot of debris - leaves and such. It feels so much better in here now. Except for the b'fast room my house is back in order. That's where we have all the back yard stuff and b/c we're still have an occasional strong gust I don't want to risk any of that being toppled over and broken. Otherwise, everything is fine.

My family in Egypt and Switzerland and California called many times to check on us...I think they stayed glued to the TV watching Rita more than us. They were all very worried! Our area really lucked out, though. Our trellis in the front yard is down and there are several trees down in our subdivision, but that's only b/c it's a new development and all the trees are young and small and don't have deep roots yet. And none of them broke...they just got pulled out of the ground, so once the wind quits everyone will be able to just stand them up again and put them back down in the ground and stake them for a bit. We drove earlier to get the two vehicles we had put in a friend's garage (our jeep and dad's excursion) and other than limbs and tons of pine-needles we didn't see much else on the ground. We did see one tree down, but honestly it looked like they had cut it down prior to the storm.

A lot of our family headed up to East Texas to escape the storm, but actually ended up running straight into it. My grannie's front porch had some damage...the roof over the porch is down on one side. It sounded like it wouldn't take much to repair it, though. My brother and uncle lost a portion of their roofs, which were tin. My brother's on his shop (he owns an AC company) and my uncles just over his front porch, not over the house itself...so that's something that can be easily mended. My sister, though had more damage I think. Her house up there sits up high on a hill and they had a tree fall and hit their balcony - I don't think it got any of the roof, though. And they had to brace two sets of their french doors b/c the wind kept trying to blow them open and kept blowing water up under them, too. In a way, I guess it's good they went b/c it wasn't bad enough that anyone would have been hurt, but now they are there to take care of everything instead of having to wait until next weekend to go up there to find out about the damage.

My other brother that lives up there I haven't heard from. I tried to call him several times this morning, but no answer. I figure they didn't stay at their home, though b/c he gets really afraid in this weather - but I don't know where they could be. (Tasha - if you read this before I talk to any of y'all tell your daddy to call me.) My other sister and her family are in Austin. I don't know when they all plan to come home - that's another reason I am really glad we didn't leave b/c I think those who left are going to have an even harder time returning to Houston. Mother and daddy left about an hour ago - they still don't have electricity and have a mess in their yard, but no damage at all. They drove by both my sisters' home and said the situation was the same there. No damage at all...which is wonderful. They are going to have a lot of work cleaning up all the limbs and leaves, though!

Uh oh...the electricity just went off again for about fifteen seconds. I hope I get this post in before it goes off again!! The wind is actually blowing strong and pretty constant out there right now. I hope we don't lose it for good again!!!

So, if you're reading and you or your family were in the Rita vicinity I hope you are all safe and sound. We were really blessed and fortunate with the way things turned out here, but by missing us another area had to get a direct hit unfortunately. You'll all be in our prayers.